


This House Is Still A Lie

by fictorium (orphan_account)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Evil Queen hasn’t been seen in years. Henry’s first child has just been born and late at night they get an unexpected visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This House Is Still A Lie

On the night they bring her home (at last, three long weeks of incubators and the shadows it leaves on all their faces, in the dark circles and the worried looks) Henry remembers about the creaking floorboard right outside the nursery.

He steps on it, not once, but three times in the course of checking on mother and daughter—Cassidy resting peacefully in her crib, and Paige curled up in the rocking chair, unwilling or unable to move before sleep claimed her.

The first time they both stir at the creaking noise, and Henry curses under his breath. He misses being a boy, misses his old home where he knew every creak and groan of the mansion. Here, even though the deeds are in his name and his family have helped to paint every room, he feels like a visitor still; it’s a feeling that lessens slightly as he carefully places a blanket over his wife and stares down at his tiny daughter. 

On the way back out, supposedly returning to his own bed, Henry hits the creaking board again, and he clutches at his short hair in frustration. His mom tells him she doesn’t like it so short, that the family is known for their long and flowing tresses, but she usually says it with that sarcastic grin as she hands him a bottle of beer, so Henry rolls his eyes and says ‘whatever, Emma’, which only makes her grin harder.

The third time, Henry realizes a moment too late that he isn’t the one standing in that part of the hallway, but a very dark shadow is instead. Of all the times he wished she’d come back, when he wished so guiltily for some sign that she was okay, Henry is relieved that she should finally come back now.

“Mom,” he whispers, conscious of the sleeping girls just a few feet away. “Even you couldn’t resist the whole grandkid cliché, huh?”

“You’re tall,” is all she says, and her voice is so choked that Henry doesn’t recognize it. ”And your hair,” she adds, with that seeping disapproval that couldn’t possibly be anyone else.

“Do you… do you want to see her?” Henry asks, feeling very young again. He tries to picture his grandfather, the way he stood when they ran Regina out of town. The posture is there, just about, but Henry can’t feel any strength in himself. 

“I’ve already seen her,” his mom says, and it sounds sadder than anything he’s ever heard before. “I… have ways.”

“You’re okay?” He asks, and as she steps into the light he realizes she made it back to her own world after all, if the outlandish black costume is any indication. He doesn’t know how to ask if that was even what she wanted.

“I’m fine,” she says, with that warm tiredness he remembers from a hundred different bedtimes, when he’d beg and plead for just one more story. “I’m so pleased you found your happy ending, Henry.”

“Emma’s room is downstairs, if you—”

“No,” Regina says firmly, and in that moment she is the Evil Queen of his (and everyone else’s) nightmares. “I can’t see her. Not tonight, anyway.”

“She misses you, I think,” Henry says, not caring if it’s a betrayal. “I hear her talking to Snow about you sometimes.”

His mom’s face clouds over at the sound of that name, and Henry wonders why that’s the one wound he can never resist pouring salt on. He hates himself, a little, and then it passes.

“I should go,” Regina mutters, her hands already moving to conjure up the smoke that will take her. “I just wanted to check on you.”

“You can come back,” Henry blurts then, desperate to stop her from leaving. “I mean, other times. People have forgiven a lot. Forgotten, even.”

“Maybe,” his mom says, reaching one of those hands out to touch his cheek. “Do you really want me to?”

“You’re still my mom,” Henry says, chin turned up in defiance, as though that realization didn’t cost him countless years and endless therapy. “And Cassidy is your granddaughter.”

“Thank you, Henry,” his mom says, with a genuine smile. He wraps his arms around himself, and the ratty Princeton t-shirt he’s been sleeping in. He blinks once, twice and then she’s gone, just a shifting shadow where she stood.

Henry bites his lip, listens to the silence of the house for a long minute, and then steps once more into the nursery.

(This time, the floorboard doesn’t squeak.)


End file.
